[geeks] The Registry (?)

[Alois Hammer]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:05:57 -0700, "Jon Gilbert" <jjj at io.com> said:
> At work we have these kiosks that are for customers to submit digital  
> files to the photo lab in the back of our store. The kiosks are  
> Windows 2000 and have Micro-ATX motherboards based on the old Socket  
> 475 Celeron, and they just die under the load of 12 megapixel files.  
> (They were made back in the day when 4 megapixels was "alot.") But  
> buying all new kiosks is cost prohibitive, so I decided to swap out  
> the motherboards.
> 
> I'm using one kiosk as a guinea pig to see what would be involved in  
> upgrading the motherboard. I was able to swap out the motherboard with  
> a Biostar board with a 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo. It booted fine, and I then  
> installed all the new drivers. However the kiosk's software crashes  
> due to the fact it cannot set the sound volume. I noticed that the  
> previous motherboard's sound driver control panel was still there, so  
> I did "Add/Remove Software" and got rid of it. Sound plays just fine  
> out of the new sound port on the new motherboard, and all the stuff in  
> the device manager and sound control panel looks kosher. However the  
> crash still occurs.
> 
> I'm guessing that somewhere in the registry, some crap remains from  
> the old sound drivers from the previous motherboard, but I have no  
> idea about how go about fixing this. I remember reading online that  
> there are programs that repair the registry... anybody know if that is  
> the proper way to go about fixing this? (I'm pretty much a noob when  
> it comes to Windows.) Or is the registry not where I should be looking  
> to solve this problem?
> 
> I also thought perhaps that I need to update DirectX. Is it possible  
> that the kiosk software (which relies on java and Shockwave from what  
> I can tell) uses DirectX APIs to control things like system sound  
> volume?

1) Never, ever swap a motherboard out from under Windows.  You're lucky
it booted.  You really need to wipe the machine and reinstall.

2) Yes, it could be using DirectX.  The latest redist is here if you're
in the mood to update, but don't count on it to actually fix anything:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c1367bc3-4676-481a-bfaa-5c15d1d7199d&displaylang=en

3) I rely on RegSeeker (free) from Hover, Inc. for all of my Registry
cleaning.  It requires a lot of thought and manual intervention, which
is the way Registry cleaning should work.  I may or may not be able to
tell you whether or not a specific key can be safely tampered with. 
Disk/partition backups are your friend.  Be extra-extra careful when
checking the "Obsolete services" box.  It says experimental for a very
good reason.